Preserves and Pickles

Picking wild blackberries is something I truly miss about living in the Pacific Northwest. Blackberry bushes hang heavy with ripe fruit in late August and early September all over the state of Washington. After I finished my year of traveling and before I left for California, I spent an August and a September living in […]

This preserve came about thanks to one of my co-workers with a prolific plum tree in his backyard. He brought me about 4 lbs of delicious, ripe, and juicy black plums, which begged to be made into some sort of preserve…

It has been HOT around here lately. The thermometer climbed to well over 90 degrees four of the last five days, and reached over 100 last thursday. It was hard to choose which was worse–being outside under the hot sun…

Ever since I bought Linda Ziedrich’s book The Joy of Pickling, I’ve had pickles on the brain… not the typical pickles one usually imagines — you know, made with cucumbers, puckering-ly salty, sour, sweet, or vinegar-y…

Citrus season is nearly always bountiful around northern California. On the days that I ride my bike to work I count no fewer than 30 orange and lemon trees drooping under the weight of their own fruit. Once I was tempted…